*dodges rotten fruit and vegetables* I'm really sorry for the massive break between chapters but I've finished the story now so here it all is. Also really sorry for the numerous alerts. Hope you like :)
I ached all over like I'd been hit by a bus. And, what with Logan's memories, I knew exactly what that felt like. My eyes felt full of pins and my arm didn't feel like it was part of me anymore. Groaning, I opened my eyes.
I was in an eight foot by eight foot cell, lying on a cold metal bed and staring up a cracked concrete ceiling. They'd got us.
"Marie?"
I groaned again and rolled onto my side to find Logan sat in the corner by the grated door, one long leg stretched out and the other bent with his arm resting on it. He was dressed in plain sweats, like me. Upon seeing I was awake, he rushed over.
"Yeh okay?" he asked, gently brushing a strand of hair from my face.
I nodded. "How long have ah bin out?"
"Dunno. I only woke up two hours ago."
I started and winced as my head protested. "What the hell did they inject us with?"
"Ketamine and somethin' else," he answered with a scowl. "Gave me enough to kill a fuckin' elephant."
I dropped my head back to the bed. "So much for keeping out of Magneto's hands," I muttered.
"It was my fault." He dropped back on his haunches with a heavy sigh. "Again."
"What?" I sat up and ignored the wave of nausea. "Logan, no! None of this is your fault. What did I tell you after the fight on the island?"
His eyes met mine, pained. "That no one blames me."
I got down on my knees in front of him. "Exactly. Ororo wouldn't have gotten you to look after me if she didn't think you were the best. You are the best, Logan. It's my fault they"-
"No, Marie"-
I pressed a finger to his lips. "I made a mistake"-
"No"- he started, his warm breath washing over my finger.
I pressed it harder and ignored the warning glint in his expression. "I made a mistake and they got lucky."
He pulled my hand away and suddenly his lips were on mine, ravenous and untamed as his hands drew me into him. My legs automatically slid to rest either side of his hips, my hands gripped the front of his shirt and every sensible thought rushed south. His hands roamed my body, leaving skin tingling for more.
"You," he murmured, placing butterfly kisses along my jaw, "can never…make a…mistake."
"Really?" I asked absently as his hands slipped under my sweat top.
He growled but it wasn't a good growl and cut through my haze. He stood, shoving me behind him, and Mystique appeared on the other side of the grated door.
"Please don't tell me you were just banging her, Wolverine," she said in a disgusted tone. "I don't think Magneto will be impressed if Rogue ends up pregnant."
The thought of being pregnant with Logan's baby had a thrill running through me.
"Fuck off," snarled Logan, pulling me into his back.
I peered round him as Mystique chuckled. Logan growled.
"Oh, you really do like her." She turned her attention to me. "Magneto wants to see you now. You can either come willingly and I won't have to drug you or you can spend the next two days sleeping." She produced a dart gun I recognized from the diner.
"If yeh take her, I'm comin' as well." Logan's grip tightened on my arm.
Mystique's eyes slowly focused back on him. "You are becoming a nuisance now, Wolverine."
"Take me with yeh or yeh'll hafta go through me."
She rolled her eyes. "I guess it won't be too hard to do you at the same time."
"Do what?" he challenged.
"I'm sure Erik will let you know," she answered.
Logan wouldn't let her cuff me and held me against him as she led us along dimly lit, bleak concrete passageways. She looked almost gleeful, like everything she'd been planning was finally coming together.
I pressed my face into Logan's side and inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of sandalwood, cinnamon and cigar smoke. If I could bottle this smell and breathe it whenever I felt down, I would be the most senile person in the world. Right now, it took my mind off what was happening and let me hide from what was about to happen.
She took us into a large hanger-style space filled with tubes and pipes and lots and lots of wiring. I felt Logan tense and growl low in his chest. I knew exactly what was going through his mind since the Logan in my head was having a fit, my thoughts filled with thoughts of AlkaliLake. I twisted my fingers into his shirt, both comforting him and me at the same time, and felt my heart stutter as he stopped walking. I looked up.
"Welcome to the EiffelTower." Mystique gestured to the hanger and my eyes caught sight of two metal slabs in the middle of the space, leather straps dangling down to the cold concrete floor. "Also known as the Iron Lady." She grinned at me. "Like the implant Erik put in Xavier's brain?"
My head was spinning. Why would Magneto take the time and effort to take everything to Europe? What was wrong with America? Had he changed his plans?
Logan's gripped tightened to almost painful levels. "What are yeh plannin'?"
"I'm sure you'll find out in due process but right now I want you both to lie down." She pointed to the metal slabs, trotted to a wall and pressed on button on it. Six people dressed in white labcoats, two women and four men, entered the hanger via a steel door, marching towards us purposefully.
Logan held me in front of him and rested his forehead against mine, his eyes searching. I saw regret, burning anger and sorrow. But most of all I saw tenderness, protectiveness and something that made the gold flecks in his eyes melt into the green.
"I love you," I blurted out, suddenly wishing I hadn't said it as his eyes widened.
He twirled my white streak round a finger and sighed, closing his eyes. For a moment, I thought he would push me away when he breathed, "I love you, Marie."
"Oh, break it up or I'm going to be sick!" Mystique grabbed the back of my sweats and yanked me out of his grasp before shoving me roughly in the direction of the slabs. "And don't you think about doing anything stupid, Wolverine, because you've got twenty snipers trained on you right now."
"And there's me." Magneto appeared in the doorway, his stupid cloak billowing behind him.
Logan growled as I stumbled forward. One of the labcoats took my arm and led me to the slab. I numbly let them lie and tie me down.
"I presume the lovely Mystique has welcomed you," said Magneto.
Twisting my head, I watched him stride into the space, his cape swishing. He looked confident and pleased with himself as though everything was going to plan.
"Whaddya want from us?" snarled Logan, starting forward.
Magneto flicked a wrist. Logan stopped like someone had pressed the pause button on a remote but it didn't prevent the deafening snarl that erupted from him.
"No, Wolverine," he chided, moving Logan to the other slab and laying him down on it. "You listen to me and do what I tell you."
He growled again.
I strained against the straps pinning me down, testing the bindings, and watched with growing dread as the straps were tightened round Logan's wrists, ankles and waist. The Logan in my head was panicking, reliving the memories of AlkaliLake.
"I believe the X-Men managed to deduce some of what I've been planning." Magneto came and stood by me.
"Ya wanna make a virus usin' me that'll change people inta mutants," I said, silently cursing my accent. "But what's Logan gotta do with it and why Paris?"
"Logan will allow me to get all of what I want from you and Paris is the city of love," he answered. "What an ironic thing that will be when the whole of it is filled with the thing humans despise the most." His half-smirk was chilling.
"Ororo and Hank and Kurt and the rest of the team will find ya before alla that happens," I said, glimpsing Logan struggling on the other slab.
"Oh, I doubt Charles's dutiful little team of X-Men will find us here." He chuckled. "We're very well hidden." Then, with a wave of his hand to the labcoats, he turned and strode away.
I hastily made sure my skin was off as the labcoats swarmed round me, their hands sheathed in latex gloves and clutching implements I could scarcely name. The one thing I could name was a frightening needle being lowered towards the crease in my elbow, the strap above it acting as the perfect tourniquet to draw blood.
Logan snarled as the needle pressed deep into the swollen vein and I winced, fighting to keep my mutation off. Whatever Magneto wanted, he was going to have a battle on his hands.
The labcoat ran off after getting one of their colleagues to press a cotton ball to my elbow whilst the rest took off the sweatshirt so I was left in only a bra on my top half for them to start sticking little white patches to my skin connected to thin wires winding off into the dim corners of the hanger.
Within moments the labcoat who had sprinted off with my blood returned and whispered something in his colleague's ear then scowled at me as he called for Magneto.
"She doesn't have a mutation," he said to Magneto.
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